Cool I generally like to play with other people. I joined a random squad last night and it sounded like I was connected to an Asian cafe. I need to find the mute button and figure out how to disband from a squad. I find the menus super duper confusing. So much going on and so very clearly made to be played with a gamepad. Super fun though and runs great.

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.

Cool I generally like to play with other people. I joined a random squad last night and it sounded like I was connected to an Asian cafe. I need to find the mute button and figure out how to disband from a squad. I find the menus super duper confusing. So much going on and so very clearly made to be played with a gamepad. Super fun though and runs great.

On my X360 controller you press the button on the right of the "X" button, I guess it's the Start button. Probably Escape on a keyboard. Anyway the box at the left side controls your social interactions. If you click your own name, over on the right you'll get options like Leave Group. If you click on others, you should get an option to mute them.

I played about three hours last night and joined up with a couple of groups during that time. One group were the kind of folks who play together so often they just chatted while running around killing the bad guys. Kind of disconcerting. Another guy I joined up with was OK, but he seemed to be having a conversion offline at the same time.

I did try using a headset, but it was so uncomfortable that I gave up after a little while. I just haven't been able to deal with them, makes my ears sweat and I don't like not being able to hear the ambient sounds in the house. So I won't be using a headset. I have tried using a standalone mic, but the feedback was a problem. So if you happen to bump into me online, I'm not being rude if I don't respond, I just don't have a mic.

Actually playing without comms hasn't been a big deal. Common sense dictates who should be doing what most of the time. I have a repair drone up and I try to keep my teammates healthy if I don't need it. And then I snipe with my LMG and an ACOG scope .

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Also, I just played the ViewPoint Museum mission (aka the Newseum). I had played this in the open beta, but this time I decided to not go in as part of a group. It was a lot more fun to be able to walk around and look at all the displays and artifacts. Also, I have two skills that I like to have fully charged before I start a firefight, so after one finishes I walk around, looking for loot, recharging skills and sightseeing . Groups tend to rush from fight to fight and that's not my style. I did get my ass kicked on the final fightfire and respawned from a checkpoint, but I got smarter and used better tactics the second time.

Also, in the photo below, taken in the mission, one of the two headlines is not correct. And I should know, I was almost 21 years old at the time

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Also, in the photo below, taken in the mission, one of the two headlines is not correct. And I should know, I was almost 21 years old at the time

I would imagine that is deliberate, probably to indicate that the timeline for The Division diverged from ours at least that far back.

Time and tide melt the snowman.

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.
-- The Doctor

I'm preloaded and ready to go. Looking forward to it. I like playing in groups, but don't get around to doing so very often. If I think of it, I'll add OO handles and be on the lookout for any calls for help.

I'm preloaded and ready to go. Looking forward to it. I like playing in groups, but don't get around to doing so very often. If I think of it, I'll add OO handles and be on the lookout for any calls for help.

I've sent you a friends invite and will try to keep a lookout.

Good news, well, good and bad because we aren't going away this weekend. Bad because I was going book shopping, good because I can catch all the Australian GP sessions and oh yes, play Division 2

By the way, a few days ago I added two step protection to my Uplay account and damn if they don't keep sending me new security codes every few hours. This is weird because my PC is a trusted device on the account and doesn't need a code to sign in. Does anyone else see this?

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

I did the American History Museum mission, again solo, and it was fun to be able to walk around and look at the displays. I'm gaming the game a bit since I can figure out pretty much when firefights are going to trigger, so I can wait till my skills recharge. But I am doing it solo so I think I deserve some credit for that .

In the past 49 hours I've playing 20 hours on the game . According to the game I'm 27% complete with the campaign. I've been taking it slow and trying to wander around to check out the locations.

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

I have about 5 hours played so far and I love it. I only played the first one a tiny bit so I can't really compare the two. It just seems like there's a lot to do and the missions so far have been really fun. I've dropped into peoples games and had people drop into mine and it's very seamless. I do think the interface is clunky, but it's not a huge deal. Runs like a f'n champ on my computer at high settings. 90-100 FPS.

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.

If you play late night PST I and two real life friends tend to play. We played The Division quite a bit so have some decent tactics down and know our roles. It's been fun exploring DC and are only level 4 since we really have had time to play one evening together.

This time it seem the enemies always know where I am. Has anyone else noticed this?

In the live game, I've had several instances where they continued to fire at the last location where they had spotted me after I went to cover and relocated without giving them a line of sight.

Time and tide melt the snowman.

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.
-- The Doctor

This time it seem the enemies always know where I am. Has anyone else noticed this?

In the live game, I've had several instances where they continued to fire at the last location where they had spotted me after I went to cover and relocated without giving them a line of sight.

Yup, I can confirm this, you can sneak up on them by flanking from your last position. From what I've seen, basically when not in a mission, you'll see the enemy get a white eye symbol above their heads, that means they might be able to see you, most likely I guess if you move in the open. A yellow exclamation symbols means they are alerted to your presence, but don't know where you are.

It really can be tough fighting at night, the enemy is hard to see unless they are shooting or you see these little green lights they sometimes display. Frankly this is the only way I want to see any enemy:

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

There's a scanner for that. I unlocked it but haven't used it yet. I assume it works the same as it did in the original, at least the because one should.

I've unlocked the scanner and tried it, but it's got limitations. The range isn't all that great and it is pretty much a one shot deal, since it has to cool down and by then you know where the bad guys are since they are shooting at you . It doesn't seem to be as effective as the one from the first game, one of the reasons is that I've had a lot of firefights outside and you can be fighting at pretty long ranges and the scanner just doesn't reach that far.

On the other hand it does seem like sneaking up on an enemy is more effective. I took a control point yesterday, but first I snuck in and searched through the tents for loot and established the layout. However that was in daylight, at night it would be trickier and then the scanner might be more useful.

I think the best usage for the scanner would be to sneak up to a location, scan, then sit and wait for the cool down and then swap it out for a combat skill or for the repair drone, my personal favorite

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

That's odd, I almost never have to assign the repair drone to work on my turret, but then I tend to set up my turret right next to me on the highest spot available. On the higher level missions I have played the turret does get nailed, but it seems to happen so fast it would seem the repair drone wouldn't have time to keep it healthy.

Speaking of skills, I've tried the Firefly but I must not be using it effectively as it doesn't seem to help that much. I've also tried the rolling grenade but the damn AI is pretty good at working the flanks so it's hard to get them grouped together.

I've managed to get three bounties so far. I think I read that the targets are procedurally generated and the first two were inside of buildings and were tough, but the third was outside and really tough. I only survived because I found a high spot with cover that couldn't be shot at from behind, but I went through all my repair kits and three cycles of my repair drone

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

I just finished a really cool control point seizure mission. I won't say what it is to avoid a spoiler, but it is in the East Mall area. What was so interesting was that unlike most of the previous control points that had only one or two points of entry, this was pretty open, which gave me plenty of practice with my sniper rifle. I had used the flare gun to call friendly forces and they showed up on the opposite side from me, so I got plenty of opportunities for back of the head shots.

Now the cool part. As I was shooting, I saw a pop-up showing officer injured, over on the other side. So I worked my way over and yup, it was a friendly officer who was hit and down. I did a revival just like he was a fellow team mate. This is a nice touch, reminding you that you are part of the team.

Unfortunately I got killed and had to spawn over at the next friendly control point. I ran back to the fight which was still ongoing. I wonder how long the fight would have lasted if I never went back? Anyway I did and we managed to defeat the True Sons and seize the control point.

In the spoiler tags is a picture of my new control point. Warning, it's iconic!

Spoiler:

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Played for an hour an a half this afternoon, tried to complete a mission took out the boss, but got interrupted by dinner and it logged me out. Had to restart it tonight, which was tedious but fine. Otherwise, I've been muddling around the first zone, having fun. The drone is new for me. Combining that with the turret (which I did use before, and liked) can really help me out.

Still lagging behind in levels to the rest of the you but will hopefully gain a few more this weekend.

I played another bounty mission this evening and again, the game surprised me, this time on how it was triggered. I'm walking along the side of a building, looking for loot, and I hear a voice calling me over. I found a break in the hedge on the side of the building and there was a guy who looked like he was camping out and he said he had info for me. When I got closer I got a prompt to accept a bounty. I did and this bounty turned out to be two bad guys. Since that looked challenging I activated matchmaking, but since I was on a timer I headed towards the spot.

It turned out one guy did answer my call for help and that was a good thing. The two bad guys and a couple dozen minions (and not the fun kind) were hanging out in the East Mall region, pretty much in the open where they had a few trailers. And my new buddy and I had a real ding-dong battle. My buddy got disabled twice but I was able to revive him both times. I got wounded three times and twice my teammate revived me but one of the times I died and had to spawn nearby, but when I got back the battle was still raging. It didn't help that the bad guys were around us making it important to keep an eye on the mini-radar for charging bad guys. But we had support from two nearby control points so it became a real mashup of a battle. In the end my buddy managed to take out the last bounty target just before I was going to succumb for the fourth time. We got some loot as well, but the fund was in a really exciting and interesting fight.

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Regarding the "call for help" thing, is there any way to consistently find out where the person is who is calling for help? I was playing last night, trying to get to the theater for the first time, when my first call for help came up.

I figured, what the hey, so I answered the call, and got placed in rando's map. He was also just outside the White House, on his way to the theater settlement. But he wasn't moving. I moved up for a bit, waited for like a minute, and he still wasn't moving. I thought to myself, "I've been here before. Destiny daily challenges, where one dude would just sit back and let the other 3 carry him." I wanted no part of that so I left.

I got sucked into that again for another call when I started the main mission after the settlement. Same thing, only this time I got placed into the dude's theater settlement and he was not moving around.

I thought, fine, I'll wait until after the hotel mission to answer calls. Then I got a third call in the hotel mission and saw that the agent requesting aid was in the hotel mission. So I did that and everything went well. We both fought together and got some loot.

Thing is, I don't recall seeing that indicator for the first two calls. Maybe I did and missed it? It sure would be nice to have an interface somewhere where it clearly spells out "Agent requesting backup from <location/mission>"; and not have to rely on my eyes being in the right place at the right time when the statement pops up just once.

If you press and hold the 'map' button when you receive a call for backup, it will bring up the SHD mode of the map with an icon for every agent that is currently asking for help. If you mouse over the icon, it will show information about their current activity.

Time and tide melt the snowman.

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.
-- The Doctor

If you press and hold the 'map' button when you receive a call for backup, it will bring up the SHD mode of the map with an icon for every agent that is currently asking for help. If you mouse over the icon, it will show information about their current activity.

Press and Hold! SMH! I was just pressing it and then using R1 to get to the screen with the big "Answer the call" panel. Thanks!

I haven't dallied with the calls for help yet, especially with the glowing reviews of people calling for help and then it being a waste of time. I could have used help for my first bounty though. Saw it pop up because I complete some mission or objective or something. I was going to save it for later, then saw that it was a timed thing. So I ran my way over there, and ended up getting stomped. Live and learn, I guess.

Hey Coop, turns out you were correct with having to use the repair drone to keep the turret alive, but for me this just happened today. Suddenly my turret would get killed off really fast after deploy, and then a couple of times it just died as soon as a deployed it, thankfully with a short cool down timer. Yet on my last activity, which was one of those "?" missions I used my turret and it had no trouble staying alive. Maybe they have nerfed it for main and side missions. I'm hoping to find a mod to keep it healthier but for now I'm just going to have to assume it may not last. Maybe time to swap to a different skill.

UPDATE: Looking through the Ubisoft TD2 forum I'm seeing several thread about this issue with the turret suddenly dying and going to a 15 second timer. So maybe it really is a bug.

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Still enjoying the game but I'm beginning to get frustrated with the difficulty. I'm playing solo (and recently finished TD1 solo, so I'm not new to the type of game) but I'm level 8 now and start to have not only trouble in the settlement missions (that scale with you) but also getting killed on the streets in fights from time to time. The combination of enemy grenadiers, the (really annoying) RC troopers, getting suppressed by the "normal" guys, while getting rushed by the ... guys who charge is too much. I like using a rifle (not assault rifle - it's currently a MK17) combined with a shotgun to kill the rushers but it's getting really difficult. I read that many people move around more but I don't find it that easy while in a fight. I have the turret, which helps a bit, and also picked the pulse (which I liked in TD1) but it's basically worthless here. I have now failed at the MLK mission twice (once in the beta and again yesterday). I make it through the fight in the roof but back in the lobby it's just too much. Part of the problem that my short-range skills are not that great (playing in PS4 with controller) and I need to do the third story mission to unlock the next skill (thankfully, the story missions don't seem to scale with you - at least that's what they say). Sigh, hope I can get this under control ...

I'm not the greatest at first person shooters but I'm now at level 18 and doing decently playing solo. I don't move much in a firefight, preferring to stay in cover. I use an LMG and sniper rifle, plus a auto turret and repair drone. And even in a building I try to stay far enough away to first use my sniper rifle a lot before I have to go with the LMG.

The other tactic I recommend is to try to have a retreat path so in a fight you can pull back into cover that will also funnel your enemies towards you. Usually these big fights have an anteroom you can drop back into and reload.

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

I'm not the greatest at first person shooters but I'm now at level 18 and doing decently playing solo. I don't move much in a firefight, preferring to stay in cover. I use an LMG and sniper rifle, plus a auto turret and repair drone. And even in a building I try to stay far enough away to first use my sniper rifle a lot before I have to go with the LMG.

The other tactic I recommend is to try to have a retreat path so in a fight you can pull back into cover that will also funnel your enemies towards you. Usually these big fights have an anteroom you can drop back into and reload.

That's what I'm trying - I'm using a (good) assault rifle (Police M4) with my sniper rifle and yes, I'll definitely go for the repair drone (or whatever options there are for repairing/healing) next, need to finish the third story mission in the eastern parts of the federal district. I feel that I can kill things (I'm beginning to get more and more blue weapons) but my staying power is not great (I'm already carrying 6 armor packs to counter balance it). I'll try the LMG instead of the SMG; also, I think I tend to force the firefights too much, getting too much out of cover to shoot and getting hurt that way. I'm also trying to use grenades, which seems pretty powerful (but once the firefight starts, they are not that easy to deploy successfully)

I use various rifles as my primary and an SMG as my secondary for close-up rushers. Even though the shotgun has a lot more stopping power, I like the SMG because I can continue to use it at range in a pinch.

I can't say I'm having a ton of difficulty at Level 9, but it's definitely challenging. Certainly not a game where I can be distracted, as even the street thugs can make short work of you if you're not paying attention. I don't mind it though, as it makes the travel between locations a bit more interesting.

I didn't play a lot of the first game (got into the teens), but in general the regular soldiers seem harder in this one and the bosses seem easier. I don't know if that's objectively accurate, just my initial impressions.

I was playing Div 1 a lot before the D2 release. I'd agree this is more challenging, and have read comments/reviews around that tend to agree. It does frustrate me after awhile, but generally it forces me to play smarter. Generally, I'm enjoyed the challenge. But then, I'm only at level 7, and haven't done more than a handful of the story mission.

I find I struggle with the control points most. Just so many bad guys, and the release of the second wave while I'm trying to finish off the last 1 or 2 from the first wave doesn't help.

Took me awhile to figure out all of the weird random loot from the bags and boxes (kids shoe, diamond ring, etc.) were trinkets to sell.

Went underground to get a faction key... opened a chest later and was very underwhelmed by the loot. Hope that changes or doesn't seem worth it at all.

I'm at 34 hours now, level 19, and I just finished a mission in what is the game's equivalent of NASA Headquarters . However I'm going to take a break from the game till they issue a patch to fix the problem with the skills timers. There are a number of threads over at the Ubisoft forum and the devs said they are trying to put in a fix. I just want it the way it was for the first three days I played, thank you.

Lastly, we are working very hard to address the crashes that are occurring and seem to be related to the Assault Drone being used while agents are in a group, as well as Skills not working properly and immediately being on a 15 second cooldown.

"A plan is a list of things that go wrong. I like to keep my lists short. Just be ready." - Rico Rodriguez

Tried the next story mission (the TV HQ) and just quit in anger after dying (again). It went a bit better this time (using an LMG worked pretty well) but then I got to the part on an elevated walkway were a helicopter is hanging from the ceiling and I'm getting rushed by at least a dozen enemies from two different directions, including a purple and a yellow elite - seriously, this is not fun. And yes, I also had the skill timer problem, so my turret stops working after 15 secs. This game seems to be too hard for me and I'm frustrated. Will try to table this for a while to not completely burn out on it (and let them fix the bugs) but I need this mission to unlock the next skill to get some healing. It's sad, I really looked forward to the game and enjoyed it a lot in the beginning, this is the first time this happens to me

I think the enemy rushing is the most frustrating challenging part of the game this time around. It seems like almost EVERY enemy will rush you eventually, even elites.

I've started gaming the system and using retreat hit and run tactics to take out some of the harder areas. The toughest fight so far was at the National Archives in which they threw me in a room with no ability to backtrack and threw 7 or 8 purples at me (along with a ton of regulars). WTF? I managed to survive (barely) by ducking into a side room and holding my ground like a cornered badger.

I guess my point is avoid areas with multiple angles of attack like the plague, and don't be afraid to retreat to put yourself in a more advantageous position.

I'm at level 27 and while I have certainly had some frustrating moments in the game, primarily revolving around the Tank class enemies, I haven't found it that difficult. I'm playing on my brand new ass kicking PC with an RTX2070 and 32" 1440p display. Wow, is all I can day about that. I have been playing 100% solo. I have been going around map doing main missions and all of the projects, so other than main missions I am mostly doing the area liberation missions which require "activities" and SHD cache recovery. I didn't do *any* side missions until this morning. XP rewards scale on side missions, but they don't on main missions, FYI. I also took most control points because fast travel.

I will say that I can't imagine playing this with a controller, but I am an old man and can't play anything fast and shooty with a controller. I was about to offer to help with missions, but I don't think it's cross-platform anyway. if anyone on PC needs help with anything, hit me up.

Gear-wise, now that I ma hitting higher levels I am starting to be more thoughtful about gear selection going for specific brand sets/bonuses, trying to pick things that work better with my play style. There aren't that many choices early one so that won't be much help in the lower levels. My first two skills were the armor drone and the turret. 26 levels later and I have still not even equipped any other skills. The armor drone I use all the time. The turret I use when I remember it on bosses that are pissing me the hell off. There is a boss named Rebound and he is NOT a guy you want to face solo.

Weapon-wise for most of the early game I was using a rifle (not assault rifle) - MK17 for the most part. I added a machine gun for special cases. As I got into the 20s I found myself using the MG more than the rifle because the rifle wasn't keeping up with enemy health. Just a couple levels ago I switched to a sniper rifle and an AUG. The AUG is perfect for close work and OK for mid-range. For the sniper rifle, I appreciate that they took out the need to TAB into the scope. The rifle was a lot better for awareness and speed to target than the sniper, but the sniper's damage advantage can't be denied.

Tactically speaking, I tend to stick in one place longer than I should, but I've generally done a good job of foiling flank attempts.

Review-wise. I think the game is an improvement over TD1 in terms of rewarding exploration. I very rarely end up random firefights in the street. If there are enemies around they are generally doing something meaningful to the game world, it isn't just random mayhem... well except for the Hyenas, they tend to like mayhem. I am very interested to see how things are in the end game and I expect I will be there by tomorrow night, so I'll know soon enough.

If anyone wants an invite to the GT clan on PC, it's a very small clan and so far we aren't doing much clan-wise but more bodies is more better. I can invite (coopasonic on every platform ever).

Thanks for the replies - yes, the game certainly throws some really nasty (and often unfair) curveballs at you. I'll let it sit for a bit (fixing the turret bug would also be important) and then see if I can get back into it:

Coopasonic: I'm also not great with playing shooters with the controllers but TD1 was certainly not a shooter in a "run & gun" way and it worked well for me. I think mainly because you can aim while in cover and then pop out and shoot. The problem with TD2 and this technique is two-fold: (1) there is WAY more income fire most of the time so I take serious damage even when only popping out to fire and (2) the rushing gets really intense and this is where the controller also becomes more of an issue for me - close-up and controller is not a great combination for me. I think if the turret works properly and I would have a healing drone, I could probable make it but I need to finish this next mission to get the skill unlock. Oh, and that mission shows at enemy level 6 and I'm already level 8, so I'm (theoretically) already going in with an advantage but I think the enemies actually scale (at least) somewhat.

I'm already picking gear that works with my playstyle when possible and I absolutely agree with you regarding the other improvements over TD1, there is some real exploration this time and I really enjoy that part.

YellowKing: I'm already trying what you suggest but a lot of the levels are purposely built to prevent you finding a safe corner or a way to retreat. Have you noticed that very often in multi-level rooms they have this stairway behind your best position to prevent you from camping out?